Mark Story: The most indispensible Cat? It's the guy with the imaginary friend

Fast-break points from the Grand Budapest Hotel:

21. Karl-Anthony Towns. Is becoming the one player on the Kentucky roster who can be a dependable low-post scorer. That makes the true freshman UK's most indispensable player.

20. "Karlito." Towns has to be the first Kentucky Wildcats player in history with an imaginary friend.

19. Tony Delk. Liked that the ex-UK guard had his high school coach, Rick Sullivan, in Rupp Arena to see Delk's No. 00 jersey retired.

18. Tony Delk II. Liked even more when the star of UK's 1996 NCAA championship team introduced daughters Taylor, Bella and Trinity to the Rupp crowd Saturday night, saying "This is Team Delk."

17. Jenny Hansen. Were you amazed by the standing backflip the ex-UK gymnastics star, age 41, did in street clothes at center court in Rupp while being recognized for her retired jersey?

16. Jenny Hansen II. Then you should have seen the backflip Hansen did on the stage, in a red dress, the night she was inducted into the (state of) Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006.

15. Undefeated into the NCAA Tournament. Of the last six teams that have made it to the men's Big Dance without a loss, two had their seasons ended by UK — Indiana (1975 round of eight) and Wichita State (2014 round of 32).

14. Alvin "Bud" Dupree. The graduating Kentucky defensive end/outside linebacker flat tore up the NFL draft combine. Measured at 6-foot-4, 269 pounds, Dupree ran a 4.57-second 40-yard dash, had a vertical jump of 42 inches and a broad jump of 11 feet, 6 inches.

13. A Twitter critic. ESPN analyst Louis Riddick contrasted Dupree's stellar workouts with the slow 40-yard dash (4.93) run by TCU linebacker Paul Dawson. Tweeted Riddick: "Bud Dupree/Kentucky & Paul Dawson/TCU the '15 poster boys for testing phenom vs. productive football player."

12. Hello? You can argue that Dupree was inconsistent. The Irwinton, Ga., product started slow in 2014 (11 tackles in the first three games). No one who is knowledgeable, however, can say he was not a productive football player at UK.

11. Got it done in the SEC. Does 10 tackles against Mississippi State, 2.5 sacks at Missouri, 14 tackles at Tennessee and three tackles for loss and two forced fumbles at Louisville sound like an unproductive football player? You don't become first-team All-SEC by both the coaches and the AP by failing to produce.

10. Kentucky Speedway 'wins' the Daytona 500. The Great American Race could not have broken any better for the folks in Sparta.

9. Jeff Gordon. In a pre-race interview with Fox, the retiring NASCAR star was asked about his goals for 2015. First thing he mentioned was Kentucky, the one Cup track where the 24 has never won.

8. Joey Logano. During the race, Kentucky Speedway debuted a TV ad that features Logano getting "prepared" to race over the bumpy Sparta track surface. Imagine the thrill for the folks at the Speedway when Logano then won the 500.

7. Luck turning? "Can you believe that?" Kentucky Speedway General Manager Mark Simendinger said Monday. "My luck has never been this good. Is this finally going to be my year?"

6. Kyle Busch. The NASCAR star suffered fractures in his left leg and foot following a wreck at Daytona International Speedway during Saturday's Xfinity Series race. Busch's car hit the wall that separates the track from the infield. The wall did not feature SAFER barrier technology.

5. Kentucky Speedway. The track at Sparta has SAFER — Steel And Foam Energy Reduction — barriers in all four of its turns. It does not have the metal-and-foam energy-absorbing materials in its straightaways.

4. Where to put 'soft walls.' Kentucky Speedway has SAFER barriers in places that NASCAR engineers have determined are the most likely to produce high-impact collisions, Simendinger said.

3. Change coming. Simendinger said that, in response to Busch's accident, the Speedway will add SAFER barriers to its backstretch before the Quaker State 400 runs July 11.

2. Getting ahead of tragedy. You do not want to be the track where a driver is seriously injured — or worse — because you do not have the safest walls in place everywhere.

1. Bottom line. "If the trend of the future is SAFER barriers everywhere, that's where we're willing to go, but it will take some time," Simendinger said. "Bottom line is, all of us at the tracks have relationships with the drivers. We don't want anything bad to happen to our friends."

This story was originally published February 23, 2015 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Mark Story: The most indispensible Cat? It's the guy with the imaginary friend."